


Boom

by emynii, ObliObla



Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Having Faith, Hurt Dan Espinoza, Hurt Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Devil Reveal, Season/Series 04, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 12:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20866337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: It was just a simple interview, but Chloe hadinsistedLucifer tag along and now he haswingsand they’re the only thing between Dan and being crushed by concrete.For the Whumptober prompt: explosion





	Boom

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings are in the end notes.

It wasn’t the shrapnel you had to watch out for, it was the shockwave, Dan’s dad always said.

Dan knew he was bleeding somewhere inside his abdomen, his face felt bruised and beyond tender, and his legs were numb. But his eardrums weren’t busted, it seemed, because past the throbbing of his frenetic heartbeat and the overwhelming ringing in his ears, he could hear someone yelling his name.

“Daniel…  _ Daniel! _ ”

A man’s voice. But who called him…? “Dad?”

A loving, if quiet man, with white streaks in his black hair, a broad Texan accent, and dog tags he never took off. He loomed through the whirlwind of colors behind Dan’s tightly closed eyelids in a vision of concern. But Benjamin Espinoza was ten years dead, and the man apparently leaning over Dan sounded more annoyed than afraid.

“Did the explosion knock something loose, or has your questionable sense finally abandoned you?”

Oh.  _ Lucifer. _

Dan briefly considered passing back out. The darkness hurt less, and Lucifer wasn’t there to be a jackass. Lucifer wasn’t there to—

_ Holy shit. _

Memories shot through Dan’s mind, bringing pain with them. He hadn’t wanted to go with Lucifer to do  _ anything _ , let alone question suspects, but Chloe had insisted, and so they’d gone. Lucifer had tried to play with the siren, Dan had threatened to tase him, and they’d settled into the awkward, contentious silence that was their default state these days. The parking garage had been weirdly empty, but Dan had dismissed that out of hand. There were plenty of possible reasons for that, and he barely managed to keep himself from dragging Lucifer to the elevator, settling on loudly complaining and tapping his foot.

Lucifer had whined, of  _ course _ , and Dan had rolled his eyes, turning away to send a text to Chloe. He was  _ not _ going to do this again, even if she asked. But his thumb had frozen inches from his screen when he saw the device with the blinking button strapped to a stone column.

He’d both expected and  _ not _ expected the explosion, though he definitely hadn’t anticipated the sudden burst of white  _ or _ Lucifer throwing himself between Dan and the blast. Then the ceiling caved in—in a sudden shower of concrete and rebar—the floor crumbled beneath their feet, and Dan fell.

And there had been something like peace before he’d hit the ground, an eerie sense of calm when his mind left his body, and he’d settled into unconsciousness, clinging to half a thought, half a prayer— _ please, don’t let me die. _

He was brought violently back to the present by a loud screeching sound above him, and Lucifer’s exasperated, “Bloody Hell!”

Dan felt dust brush over his face and forced his eyes open, trying to hold back the hacking cough that threatened, trying to ignore thinking terms like “spinal injury” and “paralysis”. Lucifer was propped over him, hands clenched on the ground on either side of his head, expensive suit in tatters, dirty but still gleaming wings splayed out behind him.

Lucifer had wings.

Lucifer had  _ wings _ , and every other thought left Dan’s head in a rush of soot-stained feathers.

“You— You’re...”

Lucifer turned his head to look at the  _ wings _ , and a half-brick sized piece of concrete smacked to the floor near Dan’s head.

“The Devil, yes,” Lucifer said flatly.

“But-but…”

Lucifer sighed. “I’m sorry for this. Sort of. But it seems I can’t move, so… we’re stuck here, for now.”

“But you’re the Devil!”

Lucifer shrugged and dislodged a piece of ceiling behind him. His wing shot out to catch the chunk of concrete with rebar shot through it. Dan blinked at the iron inches from his face. Lucifer rolled his eyes and brushed the thing away like it weighed nothing. “My wing is caught under  _ most _ of the parking garage, it seems,” he grumbled. “ _ I _ could get out, but it wouldn’t be…”

Dan lost the rest of the words to his rising panic. Lucifer was the Devil. Lucifer was the _ Devil _ , and Dan, suddenly, needed to move, to get away, to  _ run _ . He braced himself as well as he could against the concrete floor and kicked out with numb feet at anything he could reach. Or… numb foot. One of his legs seemed to be stuck, but he didn’t have time to think about it.

“Dan,  _ Daniel _ , I need you to stop moving now,” Lucifer said, as if from the end of a long tunnel. But Dan ignored him. He was the Devil. He wanted Dan’s soul, or something. Or maybe he was just here to mess with him. But what Dan was more certain of than anything was that he couldn’t trust the Father of Lies.

He didn’t even trust Lucifer.

He kicked harder, and felt something shift on top of his unmoving leg. Lucifer had said they were stuck, but Lucifer  _ lied _ , so maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were  _ fine. _ Maybe all Dan had to do was—

“ _ Stop! _ ” Lucifer’s voice shook with something terrible, and his eyes flashed red.

Dan felt his breaths coming faster and faster, but adrenaline was flooding his veins. He had to get out  _ now _ . It wasn’t the time for clean fighting—he scratched at Lucifer’s face, yanked on his hair, kneed him in the groin with his free leg. But none of it seemed to matter.

And Lucifer was moving. Screeches and groans echoed from overhead as he rocked to the side, reaching out with one hand, batting Dan’s blows aside, capturing his wrists. He lowered his body enough that Dan’s leg was caught underneath his weight.

Dan kept struggling, but darkness was eating at the edges of his vision, and he knew his movements were growing weaker. In a last ditch attempt before he passed out, he tried to roll them, to throw Lucifer off, but found himself pressed down ruthlessly. Something in his body snapped, and Lucifer growled, their faces inches apart.

“I said  _ stop! _ ” Flames filled his irises, his sclera turning black as cracks tore into his face, his skin suddenly red and raw.

And Dan screamed.

Benjamin Espinoza wasn’t a particularly pious man. He took his family to church, Christmas and Easter; made sure the kids got baptized; lit a few votive candles when members of his old unit started being lost—to suicide and to cancer and to drugs.

He was a man of the old school, as he used to call it, and Dan had only ever seen him cry once. When Dan’s grandmother died, Dan was pulled out of class. The house had seemed empty, everyone quiet and pulled into themselves. They’d gone to the funeral in a daze, his mom and cousins and aunts and uncles weeping into their hands.

But Dan had been too numb for tears.

Later, back at the house, when all the silence was chased away by eating and drinking and laughing and  _ family _ , Dan had hidden away in his room, hands clasped together almost desperately, trying to remember how to pray to a god he wasn’t even sure he believed in.

And he heard crying, not open and almost joyful in its sorrow, but muffled and ugly and  _ close _ .

He barely noticed getting up, pulling the door open, walking down the hallway, until he was standing in the threshold of his parents’ room. His dad was kneeling beside the bed, head bowed, clutching a plain, rough-cut rosary Dan had never seen before, whispering.

“ _ Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen _ .”

And Dan snuck back to his room, unable to watch.

“Amen.”

He knelt beside his bed and pressed his hands together again. But the words wouldn’t come.

“Amen.”

And Dan woke. He was covered in sweat, clammy, and his entire body throbbed painfully with his pulse. And the Devil was knelt over him, eyes wide and panicked, back to looking like a human.

Or looking like an angel.

“Don’t be dead. The detective will  _ kill _ me if you’re dead,” Lucifer was whispering wildly.

Dan licked his lips. “I’m not dead,” he said hoarsely. He tried to rub the grit from his eyes, but Lucifer was still holding his wrists. “Get off me, man,” he said, hearing the weariness in his own voice.

“Are you going to flail about again?”

“I just wanted to get my leg out from—”

“Douche, do you  _ want _ to die?” Lucifer asked, blinking rapidly.

“What are you…?” Dan finally managed to pull his head up far enough to look down his body. There was a heavy slab of concrete lying on his left leg, the one he still couldn’t feel. He jerked reflexively, but Lucifer pressed him down again.

“Cease this!” Lucifer said, with exasperation but also with real fear.

“Can’t-can’t you get that off my leg? Aren’t you, like, really strong or something?” Dan’s head was beginning to swim. Over Lucifer’s shoulders he could see piles of precarious concrete and twisting rebar, and he didn’t even seem winded by the strain of holding all that up.

“I could if you wanted to die  _ faster _ , Daniel!” Lucifer all but shouted. Dan flinched, and Lucifer pulled back minutely, a haunted expression flashing over his face.

_ Shit. _

Whatever Dan’s feelings about the literal,  _ actual _ Devil, he seemed to be losing it nearly as much as Dan himself was. And he was definitely the only thing between Dan and being crushed by tons of concrete. He licked his lips; they were dry, and even that small motion made him feel sick. “What-what do you mean?” he managed to ask.

Lucifer finally let go of Dan’s wrists, running a hand through his hair, knocking more dust into Dan’s eyes. “You humans are infinitely clever, on occasion.” He sounded like he barely knew where he was. “I-I believe you called it ‘crushing’—laying heavy stones onto the body with intent to kill. In Hell—”

Dan grimaced at the word, and Lucifer blinked down at him for a second, before his eyes gained a faraway look, and he continued, “The demons and I discovered that not only could you torture a soul by  _ crushing _ them, you could also cause them great torment by rapidly removing the weight…”

He was still talking, but Dan lost the words to the pounding in his head. His hands were free, now, so he reached up to wipe off his face, but a brighter flare of pain than the others shot through his arm, and it fell to his side again.

He remembered the snapping sound he’d heard when Lucifer had pinned him. And the pain made him bold. “Did you break my fucking arm?”

Lucifer’s eyes, which had been darting seemingly at random around their small confines, focused, laser-like, on Dan’s. “I-I…”

A world of insults opened up before Dan, a way to recover some of the power that he’d lost in discovering that Lucifer was the actual Devil, in being stuck down here, shielded by wings that made his brain hurt to look at. He opened his mouth, ready to deliver them, when his dad’s disappointed face appeared in front of him.

He swallowed the bile back, with difficult, and blew out a breath. “Okay, okay. How do we get out of here?”

“I-I don’t…” Lucifer sounded lost and seemed to realize it, as he shook his head and continued with a shadow of his usual brashness. “I don’t  _ know _ , douche. Do  _ you _ have any bright ideas?”

Dan almost said, “ _ No _ ,” by reflex, but he bit his lip, trying to think. He managed to pull his phone out of his pocket, but it was busted.

“Mine’s broken,” Lucifer said, almost apologetically.

“Okay, okay.” Dan heard sirens in the distance, over their panting breaths. There had been an explosion; emergency services would definitely come, but Dan couldn’t move, and they needed to clear a path so they could be reached. And Lucifer’s wing…

“We need to unpin your wing.” This was Dan’s life now.

“Oh, _really_, Daniel? What a _brilliant_ suggestion I certainly couldn’t have discovered on my own.” Lucifer was speaking increasingly rapidly. He shook the pinned wing, and debris clattered around. “How would you suggest we go about that?”

Nausea was rising again, but Dan ignored it. He needed to look at the wing, even if it made him feel like his brain was melting. He needed to assess the situation. He was trained for this. Well, not  _ this _ , but close enough.

He counted to ten, faster than he should have, but it was the best he could manage, and turned his head. It was a little easier to look at this around, less like some kind of awe-inspiring impossibility and, more like just another body part of the utter asshole  _ that was also the only reason he wasn’t dead. _

He told his brain to shut up; it didn’t work.

Half a concrete pillar, its jagged broken edge feet from Dan’s face, was laid over the spine of the wing. Dan wondered why Lucifer couldn’t just knock it off, considering how easily he was moving stuff around, but his gaze drifted up and he realized the half-destroyed parking garage resembled nothing more than pick-up sticks, that game he used to play with Trixie. Pulling off the column would knock half the building onto their heads.

_ Shit _ , again.

Lucifer was talking again, face oddly pale.  _ Could an angel go into shock? _

“If we were in Hell, I wouldn't have to worry about you expiring here and the detective being cross with me. Just pull you out, wait for you to stop screaming, and reset the loop.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Dan said wearily.  _ Fuck _ , his head hurt. He blinked to try to focus his eyes. “Okay, I think we can— Lucifer?”

Lucifer’s head was jerking from side to side, and his arms were shaking, not, Dan was certain, from strain. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and unseeing. And he was speaking, muttering wildly under his breath. “…get out. Gotta get—”

“Dude, calm down.” Dan bit his lip and tried again, making his voice as calm as he could manage. “Breathe, Morningstar.”

But Lucifer didn’t seem to hear him at all, head snapping to the side again to fix his gaze on his trapped wing. “Can’t be… Can’t let it— Bloody  _ bastards _ ! Should’ve just cut you off again.”

“What?” Dan asked blankly. He shook his head and immediately regretted it, bile coating the inside of his teeth. If he wasn’t careful, he’d choke on his own vomit.  _ Great. _ As if he needed  _ more _ problems on top of his internal bleeding and broken arm and  _ crushed leg _ —

But he couldn’t think about that.

Fortunately, Lucifer immediately provided a distraction. Unfortunately, it involved him trying to wrench his wing out from under the pillar. The pile teetered precariously, and he tried again.

“Lucifer,  _ stop! _ ”

He yanked on it, and a chunk of concrete fell from somewhere high up, falling above Dan’s head somewhere. A smaller piece landed on his shoulder, probably giving him yet another bruise.

Dan forced the hand of his uninjured arm up and managed a mostly well-aimed slap across Lucifer’s face before his brain could convince him it was a bad idea. It felt like punching a brick wall, but at least Lucifer was looking at him again…

With red eyes filled with things that made Dan wish the building would just fall on him if not for his fear that he might end up in the place he could see in them. A place of flames and chains and endless torture.

Hell was a real place. And Dan might be going.

Dan passed out again.

On his deathbed, Benjamin Espinoza had remained a proud man. Pretending he didn’t mind the loss of his hair, still mostly black even in his 60s. Pretending the chemo wasn’t tearing up his insides. Coughing into handkerchiefs and hiding the blood.

But he couldn’t pretend forever.

Dan had been tasked with holding vigil at his bedside that particular night. With Trixie only a few months old, and work taking up the rest of his time, he’d only managed to get a few days of vacation to go home to El Paso.

His dad had been sleeping when he’d arrived, and he hadn’t wanted to wake him. The machines beeped in the silence as he watched pain tighten the corners of his father’s mouth. He’d cried out, and the beeping had gotten faster, but then he’d settled, and his eyes had fallen open.

“ _ Daniel _ ,” he breathed weakly, “you’re here.”

“I’m here,” Dan said. “I’m here.”

His dad coughed violently, not even bothering to hide the blood on his lips anymore, and tipped his head to look at Dan. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

Dan blinked. “Dad, I—”

“Come here, son,” he said, a little louder, a little stronger. He held out his clean hand, and Dan took it, stooping over the bed. He tried to sit up, and Dan put his hand on his shoulder automatically.

“You should rest, Dad.”

“Rest!” he shouted suddenly. “That’s all any of them say. ‘Sleep away the rest of your life.’ Well, damn them and  _ damn _ rest!” He struggled his way to a sitting position before fixing a glare on Dan. “You won’t tell your mother about this.”

“I— No, of course not.”

“Good, now…” He patted his chest, where his dog tags still gleamed, then down, across the blankets. “Ah, here.” He pulled out that cheap, wooden rosary Dan had only seen once before. “Pray with me, son?”

He had never asked such a thing before, but Dan couldn’t deny him, even if he was certain, now, that he didn’t believe in God, even if he barely knew the words.

They prayed the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and more besides. And, at the end of the rosary, the Hail Holy Queen. And then his dad stopped, and dropped the rosary to the bed. He clasped his shaking hands with Dan’s and pressed their foreheads together.

“Oh, dios,” he whispered, and he’d  _ never _ spoken Spanish in front of Dan except for the occasional curse or greeting. “Tráeme a la luz. He vivido demasiado en la oscuridad.”

_ O God, bring me to the light. I have lived too much in darkness. _

Benjamin Espinoza was a man who didn't know how to have faith, but he never stopped trying, even when the machines died later that night, and he finally allowed himself to rest.

And Dan woke, blinking dust and tears from his eyes. Lucifer was watching him. “I didn’t think you were going to wake up,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, well, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” He pressed his hand against his side and hissed. His leg was starting to  _ not _ be numb, and he wondered if that was a good sign or a bad one. His arm hurt a  _ lot _ . “You could’ve just flown away,” he said. “Left me here.”

Lucifer shook his head, dumping soot back onto Dan’s face. “I wouldn’t.”

Dan frowned. “Don’t you hate me?”

Lucifer’s head tilted. “No?”

Oh, of  _ course _ . Lucifer didn’t even think about him enough to hate him, did he? And why did Dan  _ want _ the Devil to hate him? But he did. Because it made everything easier.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said flatly. He could hear the sirens clearly now, and unless they wanted a team of EMTs gibbering at wings instead of trying to save them, they needed to get Lucifer’s wings hidden  _ now _ . “We gotta clear a path, or we’re  _ both _ screwed.”

“Fine.” Lucifer grumbled, but turned his head to look at the problem. “I  _ think _ I know a way to do it, but”—he grimaced—“I’ll need your help.”

Dan bit back his standard exasperated response. “Okay. What can I do?”

“I can’t see what’s behind me. I need you to tell me what to move first.”

Dan blinked at the massive pile of concrete. “Uh…”

“Come  _ on _ , Daniel. We don’t have all day!”

Dan bit his lip. There was so much debris it was overwhelming, but…  _ Trixie. _ He had to get out of here for  _ her _ , if nothing else. “Okay, okay. There’s a piece of rebar just over your right…wing.”

Lucifer shifted again, balancing on one hand, and reached behind himself, hand fastening around the metal. “This?”

“Yeah. Pull it toward your head.”

Lucifer’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “This was your idea.”

Lucifer made a face.

Dan groaned; everything hurt too much for this. “Look, you’re just gonna have to trust me.” What was his life, that he was asking the Devil to have faith?

Lucifer watched him for a moment before he nodded and yanked on the bar. There was a horrible screech, and more pieces of concrete fell, but the pile remained stable.

“Okay?” Lucifer asked.

“Okay,” Dan said.

“What next?”

It was, Dan reckoned, a lot like Jenga. Or at least, he made himself think it was. Because then, if they messed up, they only lost the game.

The sirens were getting louder.

Dan was beginning to see a path form. There were only a few more things that needed to be moved. “Okay, lift up your left wing—”

“The  _ pinned _ one?” Lucifer asked, eyes wide again.

“Yep.”

Lucifer shook his head, but seemed to steel himself. “Alright. What do I do?”

“Push up and  _ out. _ ”

Lucifer grunted with the effort this time, shoving at the column, but it rolled free, and nothing fell on top of them.

Dan huffed out a relieved breath. “Okay, we’re almost—”

“Shit,” Lucifer cursed.

“What?”

He tilted his head. “They’re almost here. We have to get clear  _ now _ .”

Dan glanced at the still precarious pile. “This is gonna take way too long.”

“Well, what do you  _ suggest? _ ”

Dan looked between the debris and Lucifer’s wide-stretched, soot-coated wings. “Knock it all down.”  _ Knock the tower over; end the game. _

“ _ What?” _

“Just… don’t move my leg, I guess, and try not to crush me. Well,  _ more. _ ” Dan chuckled, then nearly threw up.  _ Awesome _ .

Lucifer looked at him like he’d lost his mind, and he wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t. But then sighed and said, “I’m going to have to sit up.”

Dan glanced at the still massive pile of cement and rebar over Lucifer’s head again, then looked back at his face. He was starting to be too tired, too  _ in pain _ for panic. He’d freak out later, maybe. Assuming he survived this. “Do it.”

“Are you  _ entirely  _ certain?”

Dan tried to nod and failed, the pain continuing to increase in intensity. He thought about his dad, rosary beads clutched in his trembling hands, not believing, not really, but still always,  _ always  _ trying _ . _ “I have to try to have faith,” he said.

Lucifer groaned. “Don’t ruin the moment, douche.”

“Fuck off, man,” Dan said without heat. Even speaking was exhausting him, now. “Just… whatever you have to do, do it fast, yeah?”

Lucifer nodded. “Hold your breath, cover your nose, and shut your eyes. This is about to get  _ messy _ .”

Dan lifted his uninjured arm, with great difficulty, and slowly pulled it up his body. He paused with his hand over his pocket and touched the place he knew the dog tags stamped with  _ Benjamin Espinoza _ were stored. As he covered his face and shut his eyes, he saw his dad. “Ready,” he said, then shut his mouth tight.

Lucifer hooked an arm under his neck and hauled him up. He felt the impression of feathers shifting against his back, and…

_ Crash. Shriek. Bang. _

_ Boom _ , and Dan could  _ feel _ waves of dust and debris batter his face, could feel what felt like wind but must have been the beating of Lucifer’s wings as he knocked the proverbial Jenga blocks back. And with one final, painfully loud  _ crack _ —there was silence.

Dan’s hand fell away from his face as he was laid on the ground again, feathers disappearing from his awareness, but he couldn’t make his eyes open. Everything was narrowing, and he could no longer focus on anything. He heard, vaguely, strangers’ voices and Lucifer talking back to them. He felt Lucifer’s body move away from him, and he tried, instinctively, to cling, but then there were others, grabbing at him, checking his vitals.

He didn’t have the energy to kick out, but his breath was coming faster and faster, his teeth clenching. There was too much pain; he couldn’t think anymore. Someone shouted, but he barely even heard it, jerking his head away from whoever was trying to touch.

And then Lucifer was at his ear, speaking slowly, calmly. “It’s alright, Daniel. These humans will care for you.”

Dan tried to say something, but he couldn’t manage it.

“Don’t speak, Daniel. Just rest. I…” He seemed to fight with himself for a moment. “I’ll be there when you wake. I swear it.”

And Dan let himself drift off, thinking idly that while Daniel Espinoza was, perhaps, a man who didn't know how to have faith, he knew he’d never stop trying.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings: Cancer, mentioned; minor character death; grief; panic attacks


End file.
